Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Rackspace Hosting Inc. lawyer Van
Lindberg is fed up with what he considers dubious patent-infringement lawsuits -- such licensing company Rotatable
Technologies LLC’s demand for $75,000 to settle a February case.

Many companies negotiate to pay the plaintiff to go away,
since it’s cheaper than what may become a lengthy court battle.

Using a procedure called inter partes review created by the
2011 America Invents Act, Lindberg instead petitioned the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office for a new examination of the
computer-image display patent. If Rackspace persuades the agency
the patent never should have been issued, the suit will be
dismissed. Rotatable says in court documents its patent is
valid. Its lawyer, Austin Hansley in Dallas, didn’t return calls
seeking comment on the dispute.

“We said, ‘No thanks’” to Rotatable’s demand, said
Lindberg, head of the intellectual property section of the San
Antonio-based Web computing services provider.

Companies including Google Inc., NetApp Inc. and Oracle
Corp. see the new review as a way to fend off royalty demands by
patent-assertion entities -- sometimes derided as trolls. They
like the process for the reasons patent-licensing firms don’t:
they offer quicker rulings at less cost than litigation and
shift the burden of proof to patent owners.

At least 592 petitions have been filed since reviews began
a year ago, exceeding the 520 the agency expected. Two cases
were decided as of Oct. 3, as the patent office stayed open
during the partial government shutdown.

Under the new patent law, the Arlington, Virginia-based
patent office set up processes to look at some finance-related
business methods, such as SAP AG’s challenge of Versata Software
Inc.’s patent for customized pricing, and to streamline the
older procedure for anyone challenging a patent’s validity.

Decisions on whether a patent is valid are required within
12 months. Patent reexaminations under the old rules ordinarily
can take years. Patent office officials had no comment for this
story, said Paul Fucito, an agency spokesman.

For more patent news, click here.

Trademark

Luxury-Goods Makers Win Order Against Tradekey’s Websites

Cartier International, Montblanc-Simplo GmbH, Alfred
Dunhill Ltd. and three other manufacturers of luxury goods
persuaded a federal judge in Los Angeles to issue an order
against a company that enabled the sale of counterfeit goods
through three different websites.

U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Fees said Oct. 8 he would
issue an order barring Tradekey Pvt. Ltd. from permitting the
use of any of the plantiffs’ trademarks or imitation of their
marks on the www.Tradekey.com, www.saudicommerce.com and
www.b2bfreezone.com websites. He also said the company wouldn’t
be able to use the plaintiffs’ marks as keywords, adwords or any
other type of metadata.

The suit began in May 2011 in federal court in Los Angeles.
The luxury goods companies hired an investigator who found that
6,000 sellers were offering unauthorized versions of the
plaintiffs’ goods on Tradekey websites.

The investigator bought counterfeit products falsely
branded as made by Cartier and the other defendants from sellers
who were promoting their goods on Tradekey websites, according
to court papers.

He also paid a $3,000 fee for a Tradekey membership through
which he purported to want to sell counterfeit merchandise.
According to court papers, the Tradekey employee told the
investigator that it wasn’t a problem selling fakes through the
websites.

Tradekey had argued that the investigation process was
sloppy and unreliable. The court said that it was worth nothing
that the investigators in the case had a “substantial track
record” in federal court litigation, and that evidence the
investigator produced in the past “has been relied on by
multiple courts finding in favor of the famous plaintiff brand
owners such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Microsoft, Gucci and
others.”

The case is Chloe SAS v. Sawabeh Information Services Co.,
2:11-cv-04147-GAF-MAN, U.S. District Court, Central District of
California (Los Angeles).

For more trademark news, click here.

Copyright

‘Escape From Tomorrow’ Filmmakers Waiting for Disney Suit

The official website for the black-and-white film “Escape
From Tomorrow” contains a digital clock counting down the
weeks, days, hours and minutes since the film’s release that its
producers haven’t been sued by the Walt Disney Co.

The film, shot clandestinely inside the Disney theme parks
in Florida and California, was shown at the Sundance Festival
and went into general release earlier this month. The film
trailer opens with the message, “The following motion picture
has not been approved for all audiences by the Walt Disney
Company.”

Roy Abramsohn, who plays the lead role in the film, was
interviewed in a “behind the scenes” video available on Google
Inc.’s YouTube video-sharing website. Abramson said that he and
his fellow actors were “hiding in plain sight” when shooting
the film.

Director Randy Moore said in that same video that filming
in the park wasn’t all that difficult because “everyone brings
in camera equipment” and is shooting videos.

The film’s trailer features background shots of many of the
iconic Disney theme park attractions, including the swirling
teacup ride, Sleeping Beauty’s castle, the flying Dumbo elephant
ride, the Epcot sphere and the “Small World” family ride.

One of the posters for the film contains an image of the
four-fingered gloved hand associated with Mickey Mouse. Blood
drips from all four fingers. Another shows two women running
from what seems to be a giant eye centered by the Epcot sphere.

The film was scored by Abel Korzeniowski, instead of using
familiar Disney theme music, such as the accompaniment to the
Small World ride, and the background music to the jungle-themed
Tiki Room.

This was done in an attempt to sidestep any possible
copyright claims, according to an article by Peter Sciretta on
the SlashFilm.com website. Sciretta’s piece, posted in January
after the film’s debut at the Sundance Festival, predicted that
“Escape From Tomorrow” would never go into general release
because of the number of potential intellectual-property issues
Disney lawyers could raise.

For more copyright news, click here.

Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Intel Sued, Accused of Trade Secret Misappropriation by Zettaset

Zettaset, a maker of database-management software and
systems, filed a trade-secrets misappropriation case against
Intel Corp.

Mountain View, California’s Zettaset said in a statement
yesterday that the misappropriation was so extensive that an
Intel product -- Apache Hadoop Software -- “now mirrors the
features and functionality of Zettaset’s Orchestrator
software.”

Zettaset President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Vogt
said in the statement that the company had “no alternative but
to take legal action.”

Intel spokesman Chuck Malloy said in an e-mail that his
company is aware of the suit and “in the process of developing
our defense.”

According to Zettaset, a pretrial conference for the
dispute has been set for Feb. 14.